


(it's nothing i) regret

by oryx



Category: Kamen Rider 555
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:45:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: how Takumi loses one friend and gains another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(it's nothing i) regret

**Author's Note:**

> kamen rider 4/taisen gp-inspired. also "me being sad" inspired, but hey. that's the usual

The first time he does it, it’s on accident.  
   
His bike breaks down without warning on an eerily empty street in Toshima (what a piece of junk, he thinks, kicking at the front tire with a scowl; shouldn’t a motorcycle that can turn into a robot be able to fix itself?), and when he calls home there’s no answer. Keitarou’s cellphone is out of order after being dropped down the stairs last week, and Takumi’s not about to call Mari while she’s at work.  
   
So he does the next logical thing.  
   
It’s only on the fifth ring that he realizes – an awful, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, grip tightening around the Faiz Phone hard enough to hurt.  
   
“You’ve reached Kiba Yuuji’s cell. Leave a message and I’ll try to get back to y – ”  
   
Takumi snaps the phone shut hastily, breath coming quick and ragged as he stares down at it, a tense, panicked feeling wound tight in his chest.  
   
(He gets a lift from a stranger, in the end.  
   
“You alright, kid?” the lady asks, as she helps Takumi hoist his bike into the bed of her truck. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”  
   
Takumi glances up at her sharply, wide-eyed and startled, and when she raises an inquisitive eyebrow he ducks his head once more, an ache in the back of his throat as he clears it.  
   
“It’s nothing,” he mutters. “Just remembered something.”)  
   
  
   
  
   
The second time around, he doesn’t really mean to.  
   
But the past few days have been nothing but stress. It seems like every nagging customer has waited until this particular week to come in with their complaints, and somehow Keitarou is always conveniently off on deliveries when they do, leaving Takumi alone at the front desk to grit his teeth and nod along. He and Mari aren’t speaking to each other at the moment – over something pointless and trivial that he’s already forgotten – but somehow the idea of breaking the steely silence seems impossibly difficult. (Also he burnt his hand on the clothes iron yesterday. That one was entirely his own fault, but still.)  
   
So it makes sense, in a way, to scroll through his short list of contacts and select that number.  
   
“You’ve reached Kiba Yuuji’s cell,” that voice says, and Takumi feels something twist inside him. Not violent like the last time; more a dull, bitter ache that settles easily into the hollow of his chest. “Leave a message and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.”  
   
_What kind of voicemail recording is that?_ Takumi thinks, and almost laughs at the ridiculousness of it. So incredibly normal. _You’re an Orphenoch, idiot. At the very least don’t give out your full name._  
   
For a time he sits there and listens to the vague static, to the quiet echo of himself breathing into the receiver.  
   
“It’s Inui,” he says finally. “Call me back when you have a minute. It’s… it’s important.”  
   
It takes more effort than usual to press the End button, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. He takes a deep breath and goes back to the front desk to finish cataloguing today’s orders and spends the rest of the night glancing down at his phone, waiting impatiently for a call that won’t come.  
   
  
   
  
   
It’s not like it’s a habit.  
   
That’s what he tells himself the fifth time around, when his day is going less than stellar and he immediately reaches for his phone, for that entry in his contacts.  
   
There’s just something about hearing his voice that calms him down, is all. And it’s nice, to be able to talk into the empty silence of Kiba’s voicemail about whatever is on his mind. To ramble on about nothing in particular and still feel like he’s speaking to someone, even if that someone never replies.  
   
He’s in the middle of complaining about the stray animals Keitarou keeps bringing home (“you’re too much of a sap,” he’d grumbled, trying not to look directly at that tiny kitten with its sad eyes – ) when he’s struck by a sudden sense of pointlessness, his story tapering off into nothing.  
   
“I don’t get it,” he says quietly. “What… am I supposed to do now?” His free hand curls white-knuckled against his thigh, fingers digging into his palm. “You would know, right? If you were here. You would be able to tell me. You… always were smarter than me.”  
   
The barely-there sound of the voicemail recording hums back at him, and Takumi swallows hard.  
   
“Whatever,” he mutters. “Thanks for listening.”  
   
He’s started ending every message like that. “Thanks for listening.”  
   
“Goodbye” feels a little too definite.  
   
  
   
  
   
“Who’re you always talking to lately?” Mari asks, frowning at him from across the table. “Sometimes I walk in and you hang up all fast like it’s a secret. It’s weirding me out.”  
   
“…What’s so weird about it?” Takumi asks, taking a break from glaring at the steaming hotpot to glare at her instead. “It’s just a friend.”  
   
“A friend?” she echoes, incredulous, and she and Keitarou exchange a glance.  
   
“Takkun, you don’t have any friends other than us,” Keitarou says, as matter-of-fact as can be, tilting his head to the side in confusion.  
   
“What – I do too!” Takumi protests. “What’s it matter to you, anyway? Is privacy not a thing around here? Do I have to tell you people everything?”  
   
Mari raises not one but both of her eyebrows at him, and he immediately feels embarrassment prickling the back of his neck. Talk about overly defensive.  
   
“Alright,” she says, shrugging. “I was just worried you might be talking to yourself or something. As long as that’s not it then… whatever. Keep your secrets if you want.”  
   
She launches into a story about one of her coworkers at the salon, and Takumi slumps down a little farther in his chair.  
   
It doesn’t _really_ count as talking to yourself, does it? If some small part of you is still waiting for them to answer back.  
   
  
   
  
   
There are nights when he can’t sleep. When his mind keeps turning things over – faces and words and countless little fragments of memory, all jumbled together into a mess he can’t hope to sort through.  
   
“I keep thinking,” he says, on one of those nights. “Maybe… if I’d done some things different. Maybe if I’d been better, you’d still be here.”  
   
He lies there with the phone pressed against his ear, staring at the clock on the bedside table, those neon-red numbers reading 3:46 bleeding together from tiredness.  
   
“You’d probably tell me not to think like that, right? You’d tell me to stop beating myself up about it.”  
   
For a long while he focuses on the silence, on the tiniest sounds that disrupt it, the weight of it tangible and heavy against his skin.  
   
He ends the call just like he always does – “thanks for listening” – but something about it no longer feels right.  
   
  
   
  
   
Months pass.  
   
A part of him always knew that something like this might happen. But all the same it still comes as a shock when he calls that number one day, settling in to wait for Kiba’s voicemail message, and instead, on the fourth ring,  
   
someone answers.  
   
“Who is this?” an unfamiliar voice demands, and Takumi almost drops the phone.  
   
He brings it back to his ear, heart jackhammering away in his chest, just in time to hear another, gentler voice say: “That’s no way to answer the telephone!”  
   
“They’re the one who called me,” the first, indignant voice says – a young man, most likely, maybe a little younger than Takumi. “It’s suspicious, right? I haven’t given this number to anybody yet.”  
   
“Still, you shouldn’t be rude,” says the second. Their voice gets a little clearer, then, as if they’d leaned in closer to the phone: “I’m very sorry about him. His manners aren’t always the best but he’s really a wonderful person at heart, I promise – ”  
   
“Would you cut it out?” There are the muffled sounds of scuffling.  
   
“Sorry,” Takumi says, trying not to let his bemusement come through in his voice. The noises from the other end of the line immediately stop. “This… used to be my friend’s number.” He should lie, he thinks. Say _oh, he must have changed it_ instead of burdening some strangers with a sob story. But there’s something bizarrely reassuring about these odd people. He feels as if he knows them, after listening to their voices for just a moment.  
   
“He’s gone,” Takumi says. “So I’ve been calling to hear his voicemail. I guess his number must’ve finally been reassigned.”  
   
There is a moment of stunned silence from the other end of the line.  
   
“He says this is the old number of his friend who _died_ ,” that voice hisses a moment later, difficult to hear, as if he’s cupped a hand over the receiver. “They gave me a dead person’s phone number! … Damn, what do I even say? ‘My condolences,’ or, uh – oi!”  
   
There’s a sound like the phone just got snatched away from him.  
   
“Ah, hello,” the second voice says, and Takumi can almost picture them bowing. “I’m terribly sorry to hear about your loss. It must be very hard. I apologize if this seems a little sudden, but… By any chance, would you like to be friends with Yuuto?”

He can hear the first voice groan exasperatedly in the background, and Takumi finds himself smiling despite the strangeness of this conversation.

"Sure," he says. "If Yuuto doesn't mind."


End file.
